Preminger and Peckinpah: seeing and shaping widescreen worlds

This chapter develops a comparative analysis of sequences from the films of two directors who made eloquent use of widescreen formats but who seem to be in all other respects wholly contrasting figures. The article includes a historiographical element in grounding the argument in the critical history of widescreen aesthetics and the directors’ work. It moves from a close analysis of three sequences, and an exploration of strategies in the use of the widescreen frame, to broader questions of style and its interpretation, narration, point of view and epistemology. The article connects with other work on Preminger, and on the critical history of mise-en-scène, while extending this through the comparative analysis of two figures from different Hollywood contexts and characterised by very different approaches.